The invention is related to the field of biosensors, and in particular to an integrated surface plasmon resonance biosensor.
Despite widespread demand there remains an unmet need for cost effective biosensors. Applications in research laboratories, home and point of care diagnostics, process industries, environmental monitoring, security and bio-defense, require the measurement of bio-analytes with high specificity and minimal time lag between sample collection and measurement readout. Among commonly used sensing methods, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) achieves relatively high sensitivity (0.5 ng/cm2), and provides the benefits of label free detection and real time measurement of binding kinetics, while integration with microfluidics reduces the sample size and enables high throughput. SPR biosensors are highly versatile tools, being routinely used to examine protein-protein, antibody-antigen, and receptor-ligand interactions. However, they are also large, difficult to transport and relatively costly, due to their dependence on precise calibration and alignment of the internal optics.